Weisberg Arthur

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Weisberg Arthur

Weisberg, Arthur, American bassoonist and conductor; b. N.Y., April 4, 1931. He attended the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y., where he studied bassoon with Simon Kovar and conducting with Jean Morel. He played bassoon with the Houston, Baltimore, and Cleveland orchs.; from 1956 to 1970, he was bassoonist with the N.Y. Woodwind Quintet. In 1960 he formed the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, with which he travels widely in Europe and America. He held teaching posts at the Juilliard School of Music (1960-68), at the State Univ. of N.Y. at Stony Brook (1971-89), and at Yale Univ. (1975-89). In 1987-88 he was chief conductor of the Iceland Sym. Orch. in Reykjavik. He publ. The Art of Wind Playing (1973) and Performing Twentieth-Century Music: A Handbook for Conductors and Instrumentalists (1993).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire